Saul Leiter by François Halard: Where an Iconic East Village Photographer Lived

Sep. 26, 2017

Two years after the New York School photographer Saul Leiter died, François Halard had the good fortune to come across the East Village apartment where Leiter lived for more than half a century. Leiter had created some of his best-known work there: gritty scenes of Manhattan streets in the ’50s and ’60s. There was almost nothing left but the barest traces of Leiter’s life — boxes of photographs, a paper lantern, an unfinished sketchbook, a lonely chair — which Halard documents in a new book. In the photographs, taken in 2015, the walls are stained and peeling, the floors spattered with paint. One can clearly see the ravages of time. Yet the soft winter light imbues the rooms with a ghostly beauty and Halard’s haunting images convey the presence of the artist and a lost time.